Chinese Valentine’s Day- The Forbidden Love Story

Whether you a fan mythology or not, stories are fun aren’t they? As sweet as “Chinese Valentine’s Day” might sound, the origin of this festival, also called 七夕 Qi Xi– The Seventh Sunset, is rather tragic.

Just like all old stories, since it’s spread by mouths and plagiarism wasn’t illegal yet back then, the Qi Xi tale has numerous slightly different versions. The version that I’ve heard of growing up is that 織女 Zhi Nu, a goddess who weaved in Heaven fell madly in love with 牛郎 Niu Lang, an ordinary cowherd who lived on Earth. They got married, had two children and lived happily ever after………………before God found out. (Weird, I thought god knows everything instantly and instinctively?) Anyway, God was furious as the divines were forbidden of loving let alone marrying a mortal, so he created a silver river (or the milky way) to separate the two for eternity.

Hurting nobody and creating no chaos (except for the two hybrids), the mismatch were deeply sympathized by all. Every year on the 7th day of the 7th Lunar month, all the magpies from all around the world would appear and form a bridge for the unfortunate lovers to reunite for one romantic night. In Chinese culture, magpies are also the symbol of love, luck and fortune. They are a popular subject to be used on wedding invitations and decorations. Too bad they could only swing it for Niu Lang & Zhi Nu once a year.

Now if you have found someone, quick, check if s/he is an immortal, and do everything you can to stay under radar! If you haven’t yet, who knows, somebody might be watching you and falling head over heels right this second.